


Pyrophobia

by Axelerate13



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Gen, New Game Plus, POV Second Person, post-Accomplice Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 07:11:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2182617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Axelerate13/pseuds/Axelerate13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You decide to burn the letter. Time resets, but the memories of that flame stay and affect you when you try to make things right the second time around.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Cross-posted to tumblr <a href="http://axelerate13.tumblr.com/post/95473369261/okaaaaay-posting-it-here-though-because-im">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pyrophobia

The train pulls into the station. You step off the train. You lose the note again and some girl picks it up. Your heart strains for a moment, but then you see your uncle and Nanako. You wait to be properly introduced. Once you are, you kneel down and hug her so tightly. She looks confused, your uncle does too, but you can’t explain. There are tears in your eyes and you can’t explain.

You half-expect a Shadow to appear when you jump into the TV world this time. Every corner you turn walking to the twisted shopping district, you flinch. Yosuke mistakes it for fear of this world. You don’t fear it. You fear that you’ll turn the corner to see yourself, lighter in one hand, cell phone in the other, twisted smile on your face. Handcuffs on your wrists. You think a lot about your Shadow. You think that if you picture him enough times, that’s the same as accepting him.

Yukiko’s Shadow sets your world on fire and you panic. For the first time in a long time, you really panic. When your friends calm you down, they don’t have time to ask why, but after the battle, they look as concerned for you as they do for Yukiko. Well, Chie doesn’t, but you expect that. Yosuke and Teddie, though, want to know what happened. You say nothing. They ask you months later why all your Persona-summoning powers can’t give you one with fire skills and you still say nothing.

Your uncle tells you, like last year, “Go tell off Adachi for me!” Like last year, you go to Junes to see him. Unlike last year, your gaze on him isn’t contemptuous. It’s searching. You’re trying to see beneath his mask. He’s not letting you. That’s fine. You know better this time.

It’s silly, you think, being scared of fireworks. Yosuke suspected you would be. He stands with you at the back of the group and slips his headphones over your ears. It helps. Some. You smile at Nanako when she looks at you, wanting to know you’re okay. You don’t want her getting scared too. There is so much to be scared of in this world. Fireworks shouldn’t be one of them. It isn’t even the fireworks that scare you. It’s the bits of ash floating down after the light dies down that sends a shiver up your spine despite the heat.

Once, your uncle asks why you don’t like Adachi. You say nothing. The sight of paper set ablaze is burned into your eyes. There’s no way you can express what feelings that gives you, no matter how good you get at expressing yourself.

You forget what the paper even was for the entire year until the moment it’s sitting in your hands again. It’s only there for a split-second before your uncle is pulling it away, but it’s enough. You barely manage a smile at Nanako before you’re dragged out of the house, and it’s only when the front door slams shut behind you that you remember this is the last time you’ll ever see her healthy again. You’d ask to go back, but the guilt is keeping you silent.

She’s saved in one day. You’ve trained your friends well for this day, though they didn’t know why. Rise says, “Now I’m glad for your extreme training, senpai!” Yosuke stares at you. You brush it off, but you feel the stare on you even as you leave the group behind in the hallway. Adachi is waiting in your uncle’s room, hears the good news too, and just…smiles. Heat boils up inside you at the sight. How dare he smile, how dare he be okay, how dare he—

But you see the memory of nearly a year ago as vividly as if it were happening now, see Adachi’s face twist into an inhuman grin, laughing, shouting, “You actually burned it!” You flee the room.

You avoid the TV world after that day, but you go back in to confront him alone. You can’t say why. You know he’s not the person you thought so long ago. There’s just a part of you that’s reaching out to him. Your bonds are your strength, but while the rest hold you up, one bond is tied around your neck. He laughs. It’s vaguely familiar to you. It’s painfully obvious a moment later. Right. That’s the laugh he made last year over the phone as Inaba disappeared from your view on the train. It’s the laugh of victory. You think that the pain in your ear might dull in the pain in your heart. You think the blood might bury the feeling of the bond turning into an entirely new shape you never wanted to see.

You think that right up until you step out of the TV in Junes and see Yosuke sitting in a camping chair, waiting for you. He notices the blood, but doesn’t say a word about it. Instead, he grabs your arm and says, “How long have you known?”

You stay silent. Last year, you were blind. This year, you’re mute.

It took careful fusing to make a Magician Arcana Persona you could actually use. They all seemed to use Agi skills, and while you’re better around fire now than you were months ago, you still don’t like it. You do enjoy the irony of summoning Surt, who waves his flaming sword around and then freezes your enemies. When you first try to summon him in Adachi’s twisted world, your heart stings and you fall to your knees. The team manages without you while you desperately try to figure out what’s wrong. Naoto and Kanji crowd around you to ask if you’re okay. Yosuke hangs back, and it’s the moment you realize that that you also realize why Surt wouldn’t appear. The Magician is reversed. You’d think the Hunger would be reversed too, but it’s not. Maybe you just amuse him. After you all get out, you catch Yosuke’s arm. You keep your voice low, soft, quiet enough that no one else could overhear, and you say, “I thought he was my friend.”

It’s something between the truth and a lie. You don’t want to think about it any more than you have. It settles down Yosuke and spins the Arcana upright, so you choose to never think about it again.

That lasts until three days after he’s caught, when you’re sitting at Nanako’s bedside and she asks where Adachi-san is. Far, far away, you say. Better to let your uncle handle this. You do a magic trick for her. You choose to forget who you learned this one from.  
The day before White Day, all your guy friends are crowded into your kitchen, watching you make white chocolate and marshmallows. It’s Teddie who knocks the hand towel onto the stove and causes the fire. While everyone else is freaking out, you find yourself at peace. The fire doesn’t scare you anymore. You’ve made amends for your past mistakes. Instead of fire and laughter, your dreams are filled with the smell of gunpowder and…well, still the same laughter. You can handle that. Yosuke handles the actual stove fire, though.

In the letter you read to everyone on the day of your departure, he calls you a dumbass. It’s such a sweeter word in your mind than accomplice ever was. 

You decide to burn the letter.


End file.
